Reviews

• Comprehensive Review of a Great American Novelist

  No No Boy” by John Okada is often referred as the “Nisei Novel” and the “Great Japanese American Novel.” This new anthology, “John Okada: The Life & Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy”, edited by Frank Abe, Greg Robinson, and Floyd Cheung makes the case for what Okada’s fans have known all along, that “No No Boy” is one of the greatest American novels of the Twentieth Century. Its protagonist, Ichiro Yamada, returns home to Seattle from federal prison for draft evasion, he is broken and he sees broken people around him, the Japanese Americans who have spent the war years in concentration camps. He is full of rage and pain, he struggles to understand and make his way in post-war America. His suffering has left him unable to accept the consolations of what would at one time been an ordinary life. His restlessness is unending. There are some glimmers of a way forward, but there is no march of triumph as the novel ends. And the reader who makes this journey with Ichiro will see his or her own perilous journey towards becoming a complete self i the face of a hostile universe. The best piece is the biographical essay by Frank Abe, “An Urgency to Write”. The episodes recounted from John Okada’s life, the recollections of his family and acquaintance very much create the picture of someone passionate from an early age about literary creation and finding a unique voice and vision of the world. His history confirms for me how literary his outlook really was, even when forced to make his living at non-literary jobs and to devote his time to being a good husband, father, co-worker. How tantalizing to consider what it must have been like for someone with his sensibilities to be living in New York when he did, some of the best American writing was going on there at the time. And how important it was for him to be able to leave that behind, to live in the “normalcy” of Detroit to be able to construct much of his book. That his outlook was so literary tends to confirm my view that nothing in his novel was placed there by chance or without being intended to further a specific literary agenda. He knew exactly how Japanese American readers who respond to the phrases “No No” and “No No Boy”. There’s some suggestions in the life story you’ve recounted about how the structure of “No No Boy” becomes a large circular tour, beginning and ending in Seattle (just as his time in Relocation and federal prison is a circular tour) before he has some glimmer of what he has to do with the rest of his life. A lot of people die in the 220 pgs, there are a lot of “no’s” in the story, as you point out. Each death, even the death of people he admires, he recognizes as a path which he can’t follow. There are no easy or complete resolutions or reconcilations. But Ichiro is seeing maybe a path for himself at the end. Of the other pieces, I like Stephen Sumida’s the best. His thoughts about “No No Boy” come from his close reading and analysis of the actual text of the novel, he is not looking at it the through the lenses of any particular theory or approach to literary criticism or history. Jeffrey Yamashita’s article reviews critics who have done just that, all the “schools” of thought on literature created by ethnic and historically oppressed minorities, interesting, but making me think I made the right decision for myself not to accept the offer of a graduate school fellowship and admission to a PhD program I received when I was a senior in college. All these essays I will be re-reading in the days to come. And good literary criticism always makes a reader want to return to the subject of the analysis, I’ve gone back and re-read many passages of No No Boy in the past several days. I envy those who may be inspired by Frank Abe’s anthology to read John Okada’s “No No Boy” for the first time.

• John Okada Review

  John Okada expressed the hearts of many Japanese Americans as he wrote a poem following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Though he served in the Military Intelligence Service and proudly served his country, he also, writes a novel of one man’s struggle as a NoNo Boy. Frank Abe, Greg Robison and Floyd Cheung have gathered stories, facts and interviews to bring the author back to life. John Okada’s joys, struggles, choices and works are collected in this well researched and amazing collection of stories. For budding authors, historians and for those wanting to learn, I would recommend this book. Thank you for finding his story and sharing his life and works.

• WWII American concentration survivor's story

  Classic text, a story about those who resisted Japanese American internment during WWII.

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